Clementine

Author: Cherie Priest

Readers: Dina Pearlman and Victor Bevine

Available from Audible.Com

Short Review: This sequel to Boneshaker follows Captain Croggon Hainey as he tracks and attempts to recover his airship, The Free Crow, from its captors. It also introduces Maria Isabella Boyd, a former Confederate spy turned Pinkerton, on her first assignment. It’s good, but not quite as good as Boneshaker.

Long Review: I’m a huge fan of this series, and found Boneshaker absolutely enthralling. This sequel follows Hainey, one of the more interesting minor characters from the first novel, and introduces Boyd, an intriguing character based on a historical figure. It follows an interesting dangling thread from that first novel, but to do so, it has to leave leave Seattle. The Seattle of Boneshaker was so inventive and layered that I had a hard time following the author away from it.

All whining aside, this is a very good audiobook. Priest is an excellent writer, and her attention to detail and excellent knowledge of American history make these books ring true, even with rather fantastic “alternate” content to deal with. The book is expertly read by Pearlman and Bevine, taking turns in Boyd’s and Hainey’s sections, respectfully, much as Reading and Wheaton did for the two main characters in Boneshaker. The switching perspective keeps the action moving along at a good clip while also elucidating two very different people.

Moreover, Priest tackles complex, layered questions of social justice in her books without clobbering the reader over the head. I’m always thrown when people address the Civil War or other momentous transitions in history without considering vital threads such as human rights, equality, changes in social mores, and the like. In this series, Priest is delving into questions of women’s rights, race relations, immigration, states vs. federal rights, property rights, international meddling in civil wars, medical ethics . . . the social and ethical questions she raises are manifold, and it’s the weaving of those questions into the fast-paced drama that really makes these books sing. This isn’t just fantasy. It’s a history lesson blending with an ethics class as well, and all of it makes these books worth returning to.

Boneshaker

Author: Cherie Priest

Readers: Kate Reading and Will Wheaton

Short Review: A steampunk adventure set in an alternate-history Seattle where the Civil War just won’t end, airships abound, mad scientists run amok, volcanoes make zombies, and intricate questions about liberty and rights continually rear their heads.

Long Review: For no good reason whatsoever, a paper copy of this book languished on my shelf for a few months before I finally broke down and bought the audio version. Initially, I’d been hesitant to listen to it because I was never a of Star Trek (I know, I know) so I didn’t have any particular connection to Will Wheaton. I also hesitate to get hooked on series that are still being written. I finally got over it and dove right in, listened to the whole series, and then listened to them again. I’m itching to start a third time, but figure I can wait for the next installment.

Will Wheaton does a great job narrating the sections of the book following Zeke, a runaway teen trying to prove that his father was a good man. Kate Reading reads the sections following Zeke’s mother Briar Wilkes, the daughter of Seattle’s late Sheriff and widow of a disgraced scientist and inventor. I adored both readers, but I particularly fell for Kate Reading’s voice. She strikes the perfect balance between Briar’s strength and the desperation that she struggles with as she searches for her son and tries to survive the nightmare that Seattle has become in the wake of her husband’s actions.

Priest is an excellent researcher, and this series really showcases her knowledge of 19th century American history. I’m often hesitant to read historical fiction or alternate histories because I find weak research so annoying, but there’s nothing to worry about with Priest’s books. She picks the perfect things to extend the Civil War in her story, and develops a creepy, fascinating plot to explain her changed Seattle.

Moreover, Priest develops excellent characters. Many series fizzle out after the first few books because the author only manages to build a few solid, interesting characters. With this book, Priest introduces a cast of fascinating people, all of whom I want to follow for book after book. The women she writes are particularly interesting, and Zeke reads true as a good but confused teen. Priest set the hook deep with Boneshaker, and I can’t wait to see where she’ll go with the rest of the series.

Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Reader: David Pittu
Extras: An interview with the author is included at the end of the reading.

Short Review: An dark overly dramatic story, mediocre reader and no one to root for.

Long Review: I wanted to really like this book. I loved Eugenides’s Middlesex, but this story just fell flat for me. My father always taught me that a key to good storytelling was that you had to have someone to root for. If you don’t care what happens to any of the characters, then why stick around?

Our three rotating protagonists are the three sides of a classic lovers triangle. As befits the title, there is a looming question of who gets the girl – in this case we join our story just before graduation at Brown University in the early 1980s. The paths of the lives of Madeleine, Leonard and Mitchell tangle together and around each other. We spend a lot of time with each of them as they try to find their way. This is a fairly dark book, and perhaps this review is more dour for my preference at the moment for stories in which less time is spent dwelling on peoples’ sad struggles. I do feel that Eugenides did an excellent job portraying manic depression and its impact on both the afflicted and those around them.

Some of what Eugenides was trying to do was made more clear for me during the interview included at the end of the book. This is a very ‘literary’ book, or at least was written in that tradition. What happens to the classic marriage plot of Victorian literature in a post-feminist world?

My favorite thing about the book was the way Eugenides retold the same events from more than one point of view – highlighting the misunderstandings and internal landscapes on all sides. I also enjoyed the writing itself – the description, the dialog, and the weaving of the timeline. It was just the story itself that left me cold – I didn’t care about these people. I didn’t identify with them.

The reader didn’t help. While he did have distinctive voices for each of the characters, I especially found the women’s voices to be annoying. I am struggling to find the right words to describe why – but the voice he created for Madeleine made her sound first whiny, then breathy and fake to my ear. While I might have liked this audio book slightly better with another reader, I just don’t think this was a good fit for me overall. Your mileage may vary.

Reamde

Available from Audible.com

Author: Neal Stephenson
Reader: Malcolm Hillgartner

Short Review: A fantastic, well-read, fast-paced novel of hackers, criminals, anti-heroes, terrorists, and gamers.

Long Review: I adore Stephenson’s books, so I was at a loss when Anathem fell short for me. When a friend told me the day after Reamde was released that I was in for a treat, I immediately rushed home and bought a copy of the audiobook. And then I rescheduled as much as I could so I could listen to it constantly until the book was over. I binged on this book like a kid with a bag of halloween candy. I loved it like I loved Snow Crash and The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, and I love them almost as much as I love my dog.

This novel opens at the Forthrast family reunion, where we meet our protagonists. Richard owns a company that created T-Rain, a popular MMORPG, and he offers his adopted niece Zula a job working on their new game. And then all hell breaks loose. The Russian mob, hackers, terrorists, gamers, bikers, spies, special forces . . . . think of something exciting or intriguing, and chances are Stephenson found a way to incorporate it into the story with elegance and insight. Stephenson’s talent lies in his ability to pack a great deal of information into a plot that keeps moving, while also writing interesting, surprising characters. He favors intelligent, layered characters and generally makes sure at least a couple of brilliant, strong women are mainstays in his cast. I walked away from this book wanting to know these people and ask them about their experiences.

Hillgartner does a fantastic job reading the book. His regular speaking voice seems fitting for Richard, and the accents he uses for the other characters ring true. His pacing is great, his diction is clear and undistracting, and he manages to keep this very long book engaging and entertaining throughout. I plan to seek out other books he narrated for future diversions.

Author: Carol Plum-Ucci
Readers: Julia Whelan, Paul Michael Garcia, Eddie Lopez, Neil Shah, Kirby Heyborne and Tai Sammons
Available from Audible.com

Short Review: Welcome a the post-9/11 world in which terrorists wield bioweapons and our best intelligence is gathered online by teenagers. Kept me listening and then made me hunt for the sequel.

Long Review: This book is an interesting combination of the lives of an assortment of teens, but it is far from the typical high school drama. The book opens with the death of Cora’s mom. Cora is a loner at school, which we quickly learn has a lot to do with the mom who came home from a life as a photojournalist injured and addicted to morphine.

As the story moves forward, we meet Scott Eberman (paramedic), his brother Owen and Owen’s friend Rain Steckerman (both popular high school athletes), Shahzad Hamdani (teenage computer hacker in Pakistan) and Tyler Ping (teenage computer hacker in New York). The story is told in a round robin of first person, cycling through this assortment of high school students who have all been pulled into the center of an act of bioterrorism.

With six readers, I do list this as a ‘Full Cast Audio’ book – but it isn’t really. Each voice is tied to a single character and tells their part of the story. It is a good set of voices – though I did like some better than others. That might have a bit to do with my preferring some characters over others, but it certainly wasn’t enough to take away from the enjoyment of listening to this book.

I find myself writing this review on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and it is definitely a story that is informed by that event. It spends a lot of time chasing down terrorists via what they term ‘v-spying’, an abbreviation of virtual spying done by computer hackers trying to watch for, translate and convert into usable intelligence the online chatter of terrorists.

It is definitely an intense and suspenseful story, but in the end this is a story about six teenagers and their lives. Some of it is about being in the wrong place at the wrong time – but it quickly becomes clear that each person in this story has their own opportunity to take action. For these six, their choices and experiences reach far beyond the personal sphere – but in the end they are still teenagers. A good deal of the narrative traces the inner journey that every teen has to take as they navigate their way to adulthood.

I don’t want to tell you any more details for fear of spoiling some of the suspense. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed it and quickly sought out the sequel.

Audio sample available.

Available from Audible.com

Author: Daniel Woodrell

Reader: Emma Galvin

Short Review: A stark, beautifully written and expertly read novel about an overburdened girl in dire straits.

Long Review: Set in the Ozarks, Winter’s Bone follows Ree Dolly as she tries to locate her missing father, care for her broken family, and save their home. Ree, 16, is the oldest of three children, and her life seems to be made entirely of danger, neglect, and undue responsibility. The Dollys are part of a larger near-tribal community of outlaws bound by strict rules of secrecy, respect, and gender roles. Ree’s one dream is to join the Army so she can escape, but she’s too young to leave, and her father’s disappearance leaves her family with only her to lead them.

Emma Galvin does an amazing job reading the book. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I find it extremely annoying when readers voice teenage girls with breathy, high-pitched, weak voices. The book follows Ree closely, so we have largely her voice throughout the audio book. Galvin’s reading is spot on. Ree sounds strong, and smart, and desperate–exactly as she should. During the descriptive sections, Galvin’s pacing and diction are excellent as she gives voice to Woodrell’s sparse, dense prose. She is thoroughly believable and restrained. As the book progresses, we learn that Ree’s relationship with Gail, her best friend, has grown beyond the bounds of friendship. Galvin’s reading remains true, without any veering towards stereotypical butchness. She doesn’t ask or answer any more questions than the author did.

Woodrell’s style is often referred to as “country noir.” I find that a lot of books set in the South or Appalachia are down-right condescending and inaccurate. I’m certainly no expert on the Ozarks, but I never got the sense that Woodrell used this imagined community for target practice. He shows their faults, but he shows strength as well. He stares right at their poverty, drug problems, feuds, and failures and relates those things without pity or judgment. His characters are engrossing and layered, and Woodrell never gives us too much. Often, I feel like he’s leaving us wanting for information on purpose, knowing it will keep us entranced. Because of my own academic interests, I was particularly intrigued to know more about the roots of Ree’s strange community–are they descended from Travellers, are they the remnants of a charismatic cult? We never know for sure, which is both annoying and brilliant.

As an aside, after listening to the book, I also watched the film adaptation of the story. It’s been very well received by critics, and it has some real strengths. But, as is almost always the case with films made from movies I love, it was lacking. The filmmakers omitted Ree’s sexuality entirely–as people are wont to do with stories like this. A son turns to a daughter, the mysterious origins of Ree’s community are erased–but overall it’s a very good movie.

Wild Decembers

Available from Audible.com

Author: Edna O’Brien

Reader: Suzanne Bertish

Short Review: A beautiful book, poorly served by bad audio quality and frequent mispronunciations.

Long Review: I’m a huge fan of O’Brien’s work, so I was intrigued to find her fantastic novel on Audible’s site. I was warned of the poor audio quality by other reviewers, but I decided to trudge on and see how I reacted to O’Brien’s rich, poetic prose read aloud.

The audiobook was clearly dubbed from CD to a downloadable file. Some remnants of the CDs remain, such as a direction to change CDs. That I could easily ignore. The hiss, flattened tone, and slubs I can’t. I know enough from hanging out in recording studios to know that someone could have corrected most of the audio problems in this version.

Even more irksome are the repeated mispronunciations of Irish words. I know that Irish is a difficult language to read and pronounce. Oh, how I know. But that’s all the more reason that the reader and editor should have done their homework and made sure to get those words right. Cú Chulainn is as vital to Irish myth as is Odysseus to Greek, and his name just isn’t that hard to say correctly. I could say the same thing of dozens of other words butchered in this audiobook.

Apart from the mispronunciations, Bertish is actually a very good reader, but I found them disconcerting and distracting. I also wondered why an English actress was chose to read such an Irish book. None of the characters who she voices would have her posh accent or diction.

The novel itself is masterful. O’Brien is one of the most important contemporary Irish novelists. Her prose is dense and poetic and beautiful. This exquisite book is set in a small rural town in the West, and it follows the progress of star-crossed lovers and neighbors whose generations’ long feud rattles an entire community. It explores women’s rights and station in 1970s Ireland, changing mores, farming, property rights, legal vagaries, and a hundred other things. I will read it again and again, but I’ll stick to the voices in my own mind henceforth.

Available from Audible.com

Author: Sarah Waters

Reader: Simon Vance

Short Review: An intriguing, unusual gothic novel set in post-war England, read beautifully by Simon Vance. It’s intriguing and gorgeously written, and it asks more questions than it answers.

Long Review: With this novel, Waters takes a step away from her usual focus on sexuality and instead plays with questions of psychology, unreliable narrators, class, and mystery. The resulting novel is intriguing, but some readers may be frustrated by the lack of a clear resolution to the story.

The story opens as a country doctor pays a house call to the ailing maid in a crumbling estate house called Hundreds. Dr. Faraday insinuates himself into the daily life of the Ayers family, owners of Hundreds. He befriends eldest daughter Caroline Ayers, endears himself to Mrs. Ayers, and offers experimental treatments to Roderick, injured war veteran and only son. As the book progresses, Faraday’s presence begins to trouble Caroline and Roderick, and the reader begins to question Faraday’s motives.

Simon Vance is an excellent reader. His pacing is wonderful, his diction is clear, and his differentiation between characters is clear and easy to follow. Dr. Faraday is the speaker of the book, and Vance doesn’t make it clear whether or not we should trust the doctor. I love that Vance didn’t steer the listened towards one view or another in this novel. As some of the residents of Hundreds begin to believe the house is haunted, Vance doesn’t push us towards believing in the ghost or deciding that the supposed haunting is really a devious plot or a strange psychosis. He allows the mysterious to remain just that.

Available from Audible.com

Author: Philip Pullman

Reader: Anton Lesser

Warning! If you have not yet read The Shadow in the North, stop reading this review. There’s no way to review this book without giving spoilers for the previous book in the series.

Short Review: The third Sally Lockhart mystery continues Pullman’s engrossing story of a young Victorian woman, expertly read by Anton Lesser. This book delves further into questions of women’s and children’s rights in Victorian Britain and also examines worker’s and immigrant’s rights and antisemitism.

Long Review: This book opens three years after the last closes, and we find that Sally is now a mother to Fred’s child and grieving his death. Jim and Webster are out of the country, and Sally is living at a country house and still running her financial advisory business, now with the aid of a partner and a house staff. Sally is visited by a process server who serves her with divorce papers for a marriage she never engaged in, and as happens in this series, all hell breaks loose. This entire series is full of intrigue and danger, but I found this one the most frightening because the threat is against Sally, but also against her daughter Harriet, and Sally has so few people to help her and so few tools to aid her. It’s truly terrifying.

I found Pullman’s inclusion of the London Jewish community in the story incredibly interesting. I’m no expert on Jewish history, and the book made me want to study more. I love it when that happens. I am more familiar with British women’s history, particularly the history of Suffragists and other early women’s rights activists, so I found that aspect both comfortably familiar and very interesting.

Anton Lesser reads this book as fantastically as he read the two prior books in the series. The sense of desperation and drama tightens as the book progresses. He does a great job with the broadened array of accents and characters in this book. I cannot wait to listen to more books read by Lesser.

This book has been criticized for being overly political and for containing content that is inappropriate for young readers, as were the earlier books in the series. In this novel, I agree that Pullman puts too much emphasis on the political, which slows the book down a bit. I don’t think the book contains anything inappropriate for young adults though, particularly in light of the standard fare for teens available on TV and the web. For me, Pullman’s writing and Lesser’s reading are enough to bolster the weaker parts of the book.

A Sally Lockhart Mystery: The Shadow in the North

Available from Audible.com

Author: Philip Pullman

Reader: Anton Lesser

Short Review: The slightly-less brilliant sequel to The Ruby in the Smoke, read just as brilliantly by Anton Lesser.

Long Review: In the six intervening years between the first book in the series and this sequel, Sally has opened a financial consultancy business and Jim and Frederick have become private investigators. This books opens as a ship vanishes in the Baltic. Soon after, Sally becomes interested in the ship’s destruction when she learns that one of her clients lost a great deal of money she had invested in the shipping company whose ship went down. Sally begins investigating the shipping company in the hopes of returning her client’s money to her, while Jim and Frederick are asked to provide protection to a magician who claims to have knowledge of a murder. All hell breaks loose, of course.

I enjoyed this book, but I also saw some weaknesses in it. There are a couple of plot points that are a bit hard to swallow, but I don’t tend to focus much on that as long as they don’t apply to something I study personally. More importantly, Pullman definitely brings a political mindset to his work, and I can see how someone whose political views differed from the author’s would find that annoying. In the first novel of the series, Pullman criticizes colonialism, the opium wars and trade, and Victorian limits on women’s rights. I doubt many readers see his platforms as controversial. In this book, however, Pullman is examining the excesses of corporations and the growth of the military-industrial complex. I don’t find fault with his criticisms, but I’m much farther to the left than most Americans, so I also don’t see myself as representative on this subject.

The book also begins exploring Victorian sexual mores and it has a number of violent scenes. I’ve read a number of criticisms of this book based on the fact that a “young adult” novel depicts sexual relationships and/or violence. Here, I think the problem is really how publishers classify novels, not the content itself. Sally was 16 in the first book. She is 22 in this sequel, and no longer a minor by today’s definition. But some parents really don’t want their kids reading books that contain sex or violence, so they should how mature their young readers are before handing this audiobook over. I think that audiobooks can make certain things, including sex and violence, seem more intense than they would seem on the printed page. Lesser’s astounding skill as a reader intensifies such material even further, so the violence seems sharper and the sexiness sexier. I was fine with it, but I’m and adult and my Mom hasn’t monitored my choice in books since I was 10.

The Ruby in the Smoke

Available from Audible.com

Author: Philip Pullman
Reader: Anton Lesser

Short Review: A beautifully read story about a resourceful young woman who finds herself orphaned and embroiled in a deadly mystery.

Long Review: This first novel of a series is set in Victorian England, one of my favorite settings, and it follows a head-strong, resourceful young woman, my favorite sort of character. I’m a fan of Pullman’s, and I was bound to like this book. What surprised me though was how much I love the narrator. Lesser does an amazing job as reader. I know I have an obvious predilection for English readers, but Lesser is uncommonly good. He switches from character to character and accent to accent smoothly and believably. He alters his pitch and tone for different characters, but his voices for women aren’t those ludicrous falsettos that would bounce you out of the story. His natural pitch is in the tenor range, so he drops for men’s voices rather than climbing too much for women’s. It may not make much of a difference for some listeners, but for me his technique made the audiobook. In addition to his excellent accent and pitch work, his pacing and acting are wonderful throughout. The book was absolutely engrossing. I didn’t want it to end.

The book opens as Sally Lockhart goes to the office of her recently-deceased father, a shipping agent, to inquire about a note she received from his former business partner. Her brief conversation with an office worker named Jim lays the foundation for their friendship. Her conversation with her father’s Secretary Higgs leaves him dead on the floor. As the story progresses, questions about colonization, the opium trade, women’s rights, family, friendship, and betrayal all loom around Sally. As she delves into the mystery hinted at by the note, Sally reveals herself to be an uncommon young woman, and I loved rooting for her and the allies she draws to her side. This is a great start to an entertaining series.

Author: Diane Setterfield
Readers: Jill Tanner and Bianca Amato

Short Review: A gothic novel of intrigue about family history, fame, women, writing, truth, and secrets. It is read gorgeously by two readers who both have velvety, rich voices and lovely diction.

Long Review: The book opens in the voice of Margaret Lea, a bookseller and amateur biographer, who receives a letter from Vida Winter, a famous (fictional) English author. The pathologically secretive Winter asks Lea to write her biography. Lea has never read Winter’s novels, so she borrows a copy of Winter’s Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation from her father and discovers that it is one story short of thirteen. Captivated by Winter’s writing, Lea accepts the commission. As the story unfolds, Lea has to dig through fiction upon fiction to reach the truth of Winter’s life story, but also to rehash and reminisce about her own family history. Throughout the novel, the role of speaker switches back and forth between Winter and Lea.

This book is right up my alley. I love the author’s prose, both readers, the setting, the exploration of cultural mores and the roles of women, its bookishness, its pace. I think it’s masterful. I’ve listened to it a couple of times now. The mystery of it isn’t the thing for me anymore, of course. Now I’m looking at the architecture and trimmings, and I still love it.